


Brother, Wake Up

by MilkTeaMiku



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 03, Protective Dean, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:50:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkTeaMiku/pseuds/MilkTeaMiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has nightmares about Jess. Dean is angry that he never noticed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brother, Wake Up

Dean didn’t notice, at first. He didn’t notice for a long time, and that really pissed him off. It was his job to look after Sammy, and it always had been, ever since he was four and Sam was only just a baby. 

To him, Sam still was a baby. Six-foot-four and twice as wide as Dean, but still a baby. Dean thought that Sam would always be a kid to him, and that nothing would ever make him stop wanting to take care of him. To protect him. Ever since he was old enough to be left alone it had always just been the two of them; John liked to leave on hunts, and as much as Dean respected him, that was a decision he could never understand.

He would never leave Sammy, not unless Sammy left him – which he did, for Stanford, but that wasn’t the point. Sam was his brother, and even if Dean never said it out loud, he loved Sam more than anything. More than John. More than himself, even. He’d do anything for Sam, even if that meant going to Hell (which, with their jobs, was a very likely possibility). 

That was why he was angry at himself. He knew Sam wasn’t like him, that the time he’d spent out of the business had made him think and feel differently. He’d had a good thing going at Stanford. Jess had been good for him. She was a nice girl, a smart girl – and hot, too. Sammy boy had done good for himself, that was for sure. Even if Dean wanted Sam with him, he knew not to mess with Sam’s life, not any more than he needed to. He should have known that Sam would have nightmares about what happened to Jess. Hell, even Dean had had one after the first night, because it reminded him so much of their Mother and how she had died.

The first time he noticed, it had been months. Sam was exceptionally good at hiding his whimpers at night, but that particular evening, Dean was awake. Their last hunt had been a close call, but he was just as good at hiding things as Sam was. It was easy for him to sit awake the entire night, brooding and nursing a warm, tasteless beer. Sam had only fidgeted at first, like he wasn’t comfortable, and Dean brushed it off.

But it had continued. Sam was naturally a restless sleeper, but not like this. He didn’t twitch or twist the way he was. Dean placed his beer down and moved to Sam’s bedside, frowning as Sam started to grunt and whine. They weren’t noises that Sam usually made, let alone noises he made in his sleep. The loudest noises he ever made were snores, and Dean found them much preferable to the pitiful whimpers he was making now.

“Sam,” he whispered, reaching out a hand to grip Sam’s broad shoulder where it peeked out from beneath the thin sheet of the hotel bed, “Sam, wake up. You’re just dreamin’.”

Sam didn’t wake. He let out a wheezing breath, and tossed his head to the side. His hair was tangled and damp with sweat, like his forehead. Dean thought he might have a fever, but it wasn’t that. Sam wasn’t flushed like he usually got when he was sick, and there was no way Dean wouldn’t have noticed a physical illness. This had to be something different.

“Sam,” he urged again. “Wake up, Sam.”

There was a sharp gasp before Sam’s eyes flew open. He jerked upright, and if Dean hadn’t had a tight hold on him he would have doubled over. “Dean? What are you doing?” He wheezed as he lifted his eyes to give Dean a shaky stare.

“You were having a nightmare,” Dean frowned, “or something. What where you dreaming of?”

Sam baulked, and looked away. He laid back down and didn’t look at Dean again. “Nothing, it was nothing. Go back to bed.”

Dean’s frown deepened. “I wasn’t in bed anyway,” he said, inching closer. His _Sam Senses_ were going off, and that never meant anything good. It meant that Sam was lying to him. When he looked at Sam’s face, really looked at him, it suddenly clicked. “Was it Jess?”

Sam stiffened, and turned his face away. It was like he expected scorn for feeling something for someone out of the business, and in any other situation maybe Dean would have told him he had it coming. To anyone else he probably would have, but Sam was his little brother, his Sammy, and he was hurting. Dean knew what it was like to wish for someone who was never gonna come home.

“Move over,” he said as he dug his fingers into Sam’s sides. 

“Why?” Sam growled, giving him a petulant look as he squirmed away from Dean’s hands. “What are you doing, Dean?”

After their mother had died, Dean had slept in Sammy’s bed. He remembers it, just a little. He would sneak out of bed after John was asleep and climb over the crib bars, careful not to make any noise. Sam’s eyes would always be open, wide and tearful because he missed their mother, but they would close after Dean settled around him. It used to hurt his knees to curl up like that for so long, but that never stopped him.

Even when they were on the road Dean would crawl into bed with Sam. It saved on money when they only needed a room with two beds, one for them and one for John, so John never stopped it. He always assumed Dean took his bed when he went out on a hunt, but that was never the case. He never once left Sam to sleep alone, even if Sam never realised that.

To him, it didn’t feel so different, now. Sure, they were both grown ass men who were capable of enduring some stupid ass nightmares, but they didn’t mean _Sam_ had to do it when Dean was there. So, he forced his way under the covers, and manhandled Sam until he was tucked away tightly in Dean’s arms, just like he used to be when he was a kid. “I’m not gonna say it’s not your fault,” he murmured into Sam’s shoulder, despite his flinch, “but I still don’t think you should blame yourself.”

“I let her get killed,” Sam whispered miserably. “And now I can’t stop dreaming about it.”

Dean tightened his arms around Sam. It was hard for him to think that his arms probably wouldn’t fit around Sam’s shoulders anymore, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do this. “I know,” he said quietly, “just try to sleep.”

“You smell like beer,” Sam muttered. He had his face hidden in his scraggly hair again, but Dean knew he wasn’t being critical.

“I only had half a bottle.”

“Why were you awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Sam hummed. He clearly didn’t believe Dean, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t guess what kept Dean up at night. “In Dad’s journal it says you used to sneak into my crib.”

“’Course I did. You wouldn’t sleep, otherwise.”

“You remember it?” He sounded surprised. 

“A little.”

“I don’t.”

“You were a baby, Sam.”

Sam snorted. “I know. I remember all the hotel rooms, though.”

“Me too,” Dean said. “Go back to sleep, Sammy. Goodnight.”

Sam shifted in his arms once before settling. He grabbed for Dean’s hand where it rested on his stomach and held it tight. He didn’t say anything else. Dean waited until Sammy went back to sleep before closing his eyes himself. 

He loved Sammy, and that was that.


End file.
